Utility systems, such as an electrical utility system, are monitored by a network of intelligent electronic devices (“IEDs”) coupled to a computer for monitoring various parameters or characteristics of the electrical utility system. The network of IEDs and the computer are typically referred to collectively as a power monitoring system. Power monitoring systems require software to be installed on the computer with appropriate hard drive storage and communications established to the IEDs. Supporting and deploying software solutions globally is a tremendous challenge as the vendor must design for and test numerous installation and upgrade scenarios. These scenarios can include: different operating system versions, different operating system languages, performance, computer specifications (storage space, processor speed, memory, etc.).
Current technology cannot advantageously provide a total system view of the utility monitoring system as the current technology limits the user interface to accessing only one IP address of a web-enabled IED at a time. Moreover, users cannot presently view information from more than one web-enabled IED without navigating to multiple web pages, thus complicating and frustrating the user's experience.
Typically, the IED's monitored data is read by the software installed on the computer and in turn stored on the computer for local analysis and reporting. This model can be very problematic due to the storage and processing requirements of the software overwhelming the available storage and processing capabilities of the computer. Thus, the Total Cost of Ownership (“TCO”) of even a simple system can be relatively high.
Other approaches to this TCO problem have relied upon the software installed on the computer to communicate directly with the IEDs and leverage only the monitored data stored within the IED. While this approach reduces the storage requirement TCO issue, other issues still remain that keep the TCO level too high for the value being provided to the users. For example, IEDs have a limited amount of available memory and a fraction of what storage is available in a computer. The cost to add physical memory is very high due to hardware costs and potential redesign. Even with the price of memory decreasing annually, the cost to retrofit IEDs in the field with the additional memory is usually cost prohibitive to do so.
What is needed is a solution that allows for a utility monitoring system to be deployed with minimal requirements of the user's computer while providing a robust set of features and supporting the long-term reporting/analysis needs of users. What is also needed is a solution that allows for an entry-level utility monitoring solution to be deployed and supported globally using a web browser, IEDs, and a TCP/IP connection. Aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are directed to addressing/solving these and other needs.